After 2 years, BlackTruenoAE86 Has Resurrected!

*Warning Lengthy Story Very Detailed and Many Pictures*

Three years ago, me and my dad were doing some planning I was like, lets paint our car black and put some JDM stuff, and suspension and a nice engine in it, he told me that he would prefer to keep the car how it is since its mostly his car. I was kind of down. He said I could have it if I get straight A’s in school. I told him that’s impossible that I might as well forget about owning an AE86 till I graduate.

*Fast Forward a Year*

So around 2 years ago in the month of June 2003, I was back in my home land Puerto Rico for vacation visiting relatives for the summer. On the night June 28th I was talking to my dad about so far how the vacation was going blah blah blah. So I was like “yah Fredin (My Cousin) has a really nice AE86 coupe, I’ll be sure to take some pictures of it. How’s the Blue Corolla?” he was like “fine fine, Oh that reminds me I got you a Black Corolla GT-S from the salvage yard in an undisclosed location for 300 dollars.” I was in shock I was like what! You must be kidding me! But he sent me some pictures of it thru the net and there she was…My very own Black Corolla GT-S. I still couldn’t believe it. Although she was heavily and badly trashed I knew that she had potential. Some of the many things that were wrong with it were, broken windows all around, trashed interior, missing interior parts, and for some reason it was missing a bucket shim, it had the valve cover off and cam off, so apparently some dude wanted 1 bucket shim! So he took it from that car. What sucked was that I had to wait 2 more months till I came back home! It was so hard not to think about my new car! I wanted to clean her up and make her purty! My dad said that he wouldn’t touch it till I arrived. So after 2 super long months, I arrived back home San Antonio, TX! Right when I got off the plane I saw my parents waiting for me! Greeted them and said take me to my car! HAHAH they were kind of expecting it so they took me. My dad had taken the car to a friend of the family’s house, so we arrived at the house. I literally ran out of the car and looked at what I had to work with I sat there for like 45 minutes just looking at it. But sadly my dad said I got to get home and eat and get some rest from the trip ha-ha so we went back home. That night I barely slept thinking about my car. About a week later, I showed up at our friend’s house with my Dad and one of my brother in laws with a bunch of cleaning materials and a vacuum. Glass was everywhere and I mean everywhere it took me like 1 and half hours just to vacuum all the grass and glass out of the car. Luckily no rodents, insects or rust were found so I was happy. We took the whole interior out sprayed it down with the hose and some soap. Dried it and jammed everything back in. I already knew there was a lot of work to come. Due to school and stuff I didn’t accomplish much for a month or so. My dad tells me he bought a SR5 Donor car from one of my brother in laws brother that had 2 SR5s. I was excited we needed to swap the glass and some other parts off the car. When I went back to the car the interior was again kinda dirty but it was okay. We just parked the red SR5 w/ blown head gasket next to my Black “beast” yah right.

A couple of weeks later my mom’s uncle came to visit from Boston, Mass. He was a car nut mostly Muscle car but he still knew some stuff so he helped us out to do all the glass and stuff. We also had to take the locks and ignition from the SR5 since my keys were lost by the salvage yard. So we did that. We also bought a GT-S front air dam and some GT-S stuff from another GT-S that was in the same junkyard known as rusty. It was really rusty silver 85 GT-S Coupe. Fixed the lights and cleaned up some stuff. Finally the car got its first wash since 1996. We still didn’t know what was the reason they put it in the junk yard. The body was straight, and the engine had clean oil in it without any antifreeze. So the car was looking decent at least and I was able to close the windows. So a month later we decide to give it a try and make it run. So we get a spare shim from a friend of ours (THANKS JOHN!) and put everything back together. When we go to put it in Top Dead Center TDC we go to turn it…NOTHING we put the car in gear and push it…NOTHING…The engine was locked so we got owned after a whole days work. I was sad, this meant delays and more money needed to get it running.

Later that weekend we went to visit our friend Matt and Doug they were working on Matt’s hatch, very cool build up it was…and Doug had a red Zenki Coupe that wasn’t running (still does). We were talking and we told them about our engine being ceased, he didn’t say anything. So Matt and I started to clean his garage (Huge Mess Still Is) and I happened to open his Coupes engine bay. And I see a Red top High Comp Block! 7-Rib w/ oil squirters sitting there with water in the cylinders :shakes head: previous owner had blew the head gasket took off the head and left it like that. I told him kidding around give me that block! Ha-ha he said sure you can have it if you pull it out! I was like REALLY!!!! SO the next day bright and early me and my dad show up pull the block out and go home with a smile ear to ear (THANKS DOUG!) we took apart the block the same night! Everything looked good the cylinders a little bit rusty but I said “we could always bore it!” ha-ha…So due to lack of funds the project was down for about 3 months or so…So we took the head off and some stuff to get at least accomplish something till the funds came in. The blue car was running weak and Formula D had an event in Houston that coming weekend…If you were in Club4ag back then you would have heard... that’s a whole different story a very long story! Do a search or ask me if you want to hear that part of the story. Long story short we blew the engine on the blue car on the way to FD so we decided too just take the Red Top block (THANKS YASIN AND MOTO FOR ADVICE) to a known machine shop near by (BIG MISTAKE NEVER TAKE IT TO MORENOS AND SONS HERE IN SAN ANTONIO THEIR WORK SUCKS!) so even if they did a sloppy job we got the car running about 2 weeks later. The new engine was awesome, problem though low oil pressure and it burned oil. Apparently the shop “forgot” to change the valve seals and the pump they provided was from Korea.

*Fast Forward 6 Months*

Had taken the Blue GT-S to a couple of events had sold the red SR5 to a friend of mine that wanted a pink hatch (Silly Chris). We changed the rear wheel bearings on the Blue AE86 and something on the press messed the 100 dollar bearing from Toyota Up! Arghh that sucked. We had to borrow an axle from my car to the get the car ready for the event. The engine had power had some timing problems but ran strong. These months we had taken the paper work of the Black GT-S to a friends shop to get the car registered and that was what we were waiting for. A couple of weeks later my friend Chris calls my dad telling him some dude said there was a MR2 4AGZE powered at PnP. My dad quickly drove over there to find out they had just closed. So he woke up so early that didn’t even wake me up and spent the whole day getting the whole car for 300 bucks. They towed it to where the black car was replacing where the red SR5 was the Red S/C MR2 took its place. (THANKS CHRIS!). I took the Seats from it and some other stuff that were damaged on my black car. The car had Intrax lowering springs some illuminas and some other goodies sold them at the MR2 board and broke even in a week later Me and my dad took out the engine and discovered that it was a JDM engine and had a ACT clutch and Fidanza Aluminum flywheel. We called the previous owner and he told us the engine only had 30k, him and his son had bought a rear clip from Japan and when they got the car running but the tranny was messed up and the father refused to spend a penny on it and the son was broke, the son ran off with some friends to another city the car sat for a year, he decided to give it to good will for Tax return and good will gave the car to PnP. Funny thing is that we had been thinking of buying a JDM 4AGZE since our friends had recently gotten some (Scott and Another Friend of Mine John) both had GZEs and my dad was interested in more torque so we got lucky and found this MR2. So we decided that it would go in Blue since it was my dads money and whatever and he was the torque hungry I was happy with my engine which was temporarily in the blue one till we figured what we were going to put a 20v or GZE. Anyways while waiting for the title stuff for the black car to come thru a friend of ours and I worked on the engine removed TVIS and did some tuning and solved the timing problem. The car ran awesome now. Took it to a drift event ran WAY better. Only problems still low oil pressure, burning of oil. Dumb Moreno and Sons… Later that month my friends from Drift Clubs came down and gave me a hand to pull out the Block. (THANKS DARON AND THOMAS!) We also put the missing rear axle in with some hammering.

In this period of time I had bought some stuff from my brother in law in Japan like JDM lights, Bumper, Steering Wheel, and lastly suspension.(THANKS ADAN & ELSIE I luv yall!)…So finally after 8 months of waiting my paperwork came in so I was able to register the car and get license plates. All this time my car still had a busted windshield and to my surprise my parents had replaced it on my B-day and found out about it 2 months later! So the car was ready to get running. We decided our goal would be drift show off Houston April 23, 2005. We got the car running that weekend swapped everything from my Blue AE86 to my Black AE86. Included my JDM Stuff, Engine and Gas Tank We were going to put on the Aluminum flywheel that the GZE had on the engine but the ACT Clutch Disk was messed up so we weren’t able to install the flywheel since surface area is 212mm. SO I put a Stock Clutch for now and took off my dads ACT Other Clutch Kit Got Everything Plugged up and wired. For the first time I cranked it…Nothing NOOOOO the car wouldn’t start. After 2 hours looking for what we did wrong it was a ground that we hadn’t connected (Grounds Suck)! After we got some fuel pressure she started right up VROOOM VROOOOOOM! 4AG came alive once again and my car was running. After almost 9 Years of being dead she was alive… So it’s been 2 weeks from that day and it was the happiest day of my life on the drive from my friend’s house to our house I was smiling the whole way! My car was running! What else could I ask for? So I finished up installing some stuff. Cleaned it like every day that week that weekend I buffed the paint a lil.

This past weekend I took it to a drift event here in Texas, the car handles so awesome it’s so nice with the TRD Japans (THANKS AGAIN ADAN) had some small problems. We had a little filter for the breather and a bunch of the oil came out thru there while I was doing donuts around cones so I thought I had popped my head gasket 6 hours away from home. But it was that, so I just put it like stock hose over to the intake manifold. The car is fine now. The low mileage LSD and Tranny are way better than ole blue beaten and worn LSD and tranny…What’s weird is that the previous owner had redline fluids on both the tranny and differential which was pretty cool. So yeah my car is running I still have to do some stuff to it Bleed the brakes and Flush the Clutch system and bleed it. I’m working on a head I have to prep it and put it on my car with good valve seals and a slight port job. Then the car should be done other than pick up some good adjustable shocks, nrcas, some Camber plates, Pick up a JDM rear bumper when I go to Japan and a corner lense and in the Future a bucket seat. But for now she’s good enough… Although the car is slightly Boro and needs a paintjob, I still love it…

Here are some pictures:

In The Beggining:

Months Later:

Couple More Months Passed By:

Let the Swap Begin:

Out and about Of The Back Yard! After 2 years:

Home Finally Home!:

Clean And Buff Time!:

The Engine All nice and Clean!

Track Time!:




Special Thanks To:
Pops Of Course
Adan J
John Yim
Yasin
Moto
Hiroo
Taka
John Crespo
Doug S
Thomas S
Daron
Chris H
Chris K
Elsie J
David
DriftClubs Crew
Club4AG
Daily Drifter Dudes
Drift Day Dudes
Icon Crew
And Thanks to everyone for your support and counseling I really appreciate it this car wouldn't be where it is where it is without you guys THANKS!

Thanks For Reading More Updates Will Come Eventually,
Peace,

-Emilio
Team-AE86